The joy and the pain of joint council chief executives

As some local authorities abandon joint heads, others claim the exercise is saving local taxpayers

Sharing senior staff can prove difficult for local authorities, but many are considered too small to avoid this cost-saving exercise. Photograph: Andy Rouse / Rex Features Andy Rouse / Rex Features/Andy Rouse / Rex Features

Eric Pickles' speech to last year's Conservative party conference will have had town hall bosses quaking in their seats. "Councils must fundamentally rethink their finances," the communities secretary said. The future of local government, he explained, lay in merging top jobs and services with other authorities. Later that month, the October spending review supplied fuel for such a rethink by shrinking council funding by almost a third – from £28.5bn in 2010-11 to £22.9bn in 2014-15.

Pickles has since made clear his thoughts on senior staff: there are too many, and they are paid far too much. Figures compiled by his department show chief officers take home £576m a year and that 220 of them earn more than the prime minister. Carl Sargeant, the Labour local government minister in Wales, was even more forthright. Welsh authorities suffered from "unsustainable and outdated" senior staff structures, he told local government leaders in June.

A trend to share chief executives took off in England four years ago, according to Gordon Mitchell, a consultant who advises councils considering the move. The first merged roles were largely stop-gaps to cover long-term sick leave and vacancies that were difficult to fill. But around 25 pairs of mainly district authorities now have permanent arrangements, with 15 more expected within nine months. "With the funding squeeze, this has got to be one of the options," Mitchell says.

East Dorset and Christchurch councils are two of the latest to merge senior roles, saving so far a quarter of their £1.6m efficiency goal (see below). Yet doubt has been cast over the wisdom of merging roles after authorities began to ditch plans for joint chief executives or cancelling shared posts shortly after they were created. The reasons only serve to highlight the complexities of sharing.

District authorities Chorley and Wyre abandoned their merged post after the incumbent, Donna Hall, resigned to become deputy chief executive of Wigan council. Peter Gibson, leader of Wyre, says it had offered to share her with Chorley because of her excellent reputation in the region. "We needed to improve and restructure, and Hall was the right person to do it," he says. When Hall left so did the very reason for creating a joint job. Hall said Wyre effectively received an in-depth consultancy service for the £40,000 it paid for her services. "It was a very shrewd move," she says. Hall still thinks that shared roles are the future. "There are hundreds of district councils and some are tiny. It doesn't makes sense to have all those separate directors."

Conwy council was pressured by the Welsh Assembly Government to share a chief executive after its last one resigned. Councillors, however, recently snubbed the idea after officers warned it was "not a well-trodden path" for Welsh unitary authorities. Two authorities with similar structures – Camden and Islington – had recently abandon the move, they advised in council papers.

Lost savings?

These two Labour-controlled London boroughs, whose proposal was both announced and abandoned last year, had set out one of the most ambitious plans to date. Moira Gibb, Camden's chief executive, stood to control a combined budget of £507m to provide services to 400,000 people. Terry Stacy, leader of the Liberal Democrat group in Islington and a proponent of the plan, claims it failed because of a culture clash between Gibb and Catherine West, Islington's leader since the 2010 local election. "Moira [Gibb] has a very distinctive style," says Stacy. "She ran the authority. In Islington, the members are very hands on – they are all full time. That takes a very different sort of chief executive." Both authorities admitted the proposal was ditched because of the "very significant upheaval" and costs involved. Gibb resigned in July 2011.

Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea councils have taken up the baton in London by agreeing to share chief executives in a move that will save £120,000 a year. Hammersmith & Fulham council leader Stephen Greenhalgh says efforts to cut costs and protect frontline services should start at the "very top". The west London authority claims the joint role will be the first for a unitary authority in England.

Joint chief executives are more common between district authorities because salaries consume proportionally more of their budgets than in unitary and metropolitan councils. The latter two act much more as service commissioners than direct providers. An exception is Conservative-led Brentwood in Essex, which shares its top post with Essex county council. This arrangement ran into trouble when Tory councillors rebelled against their party's plan to close Brentwood town hall. They voted down the proposal alongside the Liberal Democrat opposition.

David Kendall, a Lib Dem Brentwood and Essex councillor, described the merged role as a bad deal for Brentwood. "Essex is massive. How much time does our chief executive have to focus on the strategic needs of a little, isolated borough?" Even Joanna Killian, chief executive at Essex and Brentwood, admits the partnership proved challenging. "But we have also seen rewards," she says. "Brentwood pay just £30,000 for myself as chief executive, saving taxpayers over £100,000 a year. I am committed to ensuring and supporting both councils to achieve their key priorities."

Despite national political pressure to merge top jobs and services, the most successful arrangements appear to demand strong local political support. "This can't be forced," says Mitchell. "It is fine for the secretary of state to push this as an idea, but it will only happen when the two councils agree it is reasonable, feasible and productive."

Servant with two masters

East Dorset and Christchurch councils appointed David McIntosh as their first joint chief executive last September, shaving 10% from a combined budget of £16m. A quarter of this £1.6m saving has already been achieved by cutting senior management posts across the councils from 17 to nine. Senior staff now work in one shared team across both Conservative-controlled districts, which collectively provide services to 134,600 people. The measures have helped both authorities freeze council tax this year despite losing almost £1m from their budgets.

Dealing with two groups of politicians is one of the extra layers of complexity with which a joint chief executive must cope, McIntosh admits. Both councils were keen to maintain their own identities, decision-making powers and sets of councillors when they agreed to share a chief executive. "It just means you have two sets of relationships," McIntosh says. "It is normal for the chief executive to have a close working relationship with the leader. I have now got working relationships with two. It is entirely manageable." His job has however been made easier because both councils are Conservative-controlled. "In terms of policy, it helps because you would expect them to have more in common."

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